This 31-part series chronicles why each team is going to be trash in the 2018-2019 NHL season. Progressing alphabetically, three teams will be featured weekly during the off-season. A compendium 31-part series will be published by Hockey Doc (@RealHockeyDoc) on www.BeerLeagueTalk.com on why your team is good in the 2018-2019 NHL season.

The Boston Bruins have shown improvement in each post season since a 2 year hiatus from the playoffs in the 2014-2015 and 2016-2017 seasons. Is this the season they break through and really go deep? No, no it’s not.

Up front, the Bruins have a ridiculously top heavy team going into the 2018-2019 season. While that top line is dominant, scoring almost double the points as the second line, depth is key to winning. What if Marchand finally pulls his dick out and slaps someone in the face? I’d say that’s at least a 30 game suspension and in turn a large piece of that first line out for an extended period of time. At that point Bruins fans are hoping that Jake DeBrusk can bury 30-40 goals and 80-100 points in a season. That’s a tall order, even for the talented sophomore. This doesn’t just go for Marchand. If Bergeron or Pastrnak miss time it will be a nightmare situation for the Bruins as well. What makes this scenario real is that Marchand and Bergeron are 30 and 32 respectively. What makes it more real is that both players also missed 14 and 18 games respectively last season. Krejci has proven he can’t carry this team, or really even contribute at an elite clip and Backes could just as easily move down the lineup instead of up it. On top of it all both these players missed some decent time last season too. I don’t think any of these players are going to get any more durable or less suspendible… Do you? Looking down the lineup, there’s tremendous pressure on the young bottom 6 to perform, which could just as easily turn to shit as it could work.

Side note: Haha, Marchand’s such a rat fink shit head.

Meme credit: @dregger84

This moves us to the Bruins defensive core who’s appeal could also be their downfall. Half the top 4 is young which is good and the other half is Chara and Krug. What looks like a great blend of vets to young players will implode if McAvoy doesn’t have an even better season this year, Carlo doesn’t fully recover from his ankle injury, if Chara continues to skate like a 3 legged Kodiak bear, or if Torey Krug has a sub-par season or gets injured. While all of these are legit possibilities, the Chara one is guaranteed. The literal elephant in the room is Chara, who has aged like a 40 year old meth addict the past few seasons and gets beat left and right, as he’s not able to just rely on his massive size. The bottom pair of Moore and Miller are probably ok, albeit a bit expensive at $5 mill per year for the pair. Which leads us to the current cap space the Bruins have, which is under $3 million. Not a lot of wiggle room for a team that may need to pick someone up to fill a hole at deadline.

At least between the pipes they have Rask…backed up by an overpaid Halak(?). Letting Khudobin go as a free agent and signing Halak for $250k more seems like a bit of a dumbass move. Good going Sweeney. Seriously though, how many contracts can Halak get based on his heroics against the Capitals with Montreal?

Finally, the Bruins bench boss. Bruce Cassidy’s last head coaching job was with the Washington Capitals where he coached 1 full year, turned the locker room against him, and was subsequently fired 25 games into the 2003-2004 season. It’s taken him that long to recover from his Caps shit show. Now a lot probably happened since then, but he’s no Claude Julien.

There’s a lot that could go right for the Bruins if their young guns over-perform and provide a more balanced look next season. There’s also a lot that could go wrong, like an injury bug similar to last season, the veterans start crapping out, and the young guys don’t even meet last years benchmark. Which at this point is way more likely.